Latest revision as of 21:03, November 5, 2007

What are the vital components of living existence? Certainly there is life; for something to live, it must be born, it must exist in a space of time that is known as “life.” Before and after this period of life is a nothingness known as “death,” the void that contains all that is not life. The structure and definition of death is heavily disputed, but irrelevant to the discussion here. Death is an indefinite, broadly defined concept; life, however, is spoken of much more simply.

There is a third component, however. There is life, there is death, but there is a purpose for life to rise out of death. Oftentimes it is referred to as the “meaning” of life, the “answer” to life, the “reason” for existence. Indeed, this third component is difficult to define, as it is merely a concept that cannot be expressed wholly in words. Life is life; death is not life; the third element is a dimension unto itself.

Death cannot be described, as no one has been able to bring back stories or proof of what exists outside of life, if anything exists at all. This third element, however, sometimes manifests itself during life (and, perhaps, death) in different forms. The most perfect example of this element “bleeding through,” if you will, to life as we humans know it, is a small, circular object typically divided amongst several people. It is commonly known as the Pizza Pie.

Pyism (pronounced PIE – ism) is only just emerging as a new form of philosophy. Its perspective primarily deals with the nature of the Pizza and how it relates to life. By understanding the Pizza, the third element can be better understood, and human beings are one step closer to the answer to “everything.”

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The pizza pie’s typical shape is one of a circular nature. This in itself is an interest, as a circle is an unachievable shape for any human being to produce. Thus, all pizzas are only a variation on the unachievable perfect pizza, which is completely round and follows all of the mathematical rules that a circle ought to. For the rest of this discussion, we will be focusing on the “perfect” pizza pie and how it should look.

Around the perimeter is a “crust,” a thickened part of the dough that serves the purpose of holding the sauce in. It creates a sort of shallow bowl for the sauce and any subsequent toppings. The crust itself does not contain any toppings nor sauce.

Interestingly the pizza model can be applied to any number of concepts that are difficult to diagram otherwise. A personality, for instance, may have depth (sauce) inside of its perimeter, but its outside, its perimeter, its container, its “crust”, has no depth (sauce) and little insight (toppings) into who the person truly is.

Pyism also says that the pizza model can be applied to philosophy itself. Philosophers try to create the perfect pizza by forever adding and subtracting toppings from the pie, yet none ever falls on the crust—the perfect, circular truth, that can never be reached. For the crust is not only a crust, it is an untouchable part of the pizza; nothing is the crust but the crust. Attempts to pump the crust with sauce and other such nonsense makes it not crust, for it has lost its purity. Still, one might argue that no pizza is truly without crust, for there is at least an infinitely small amount of crust for every pizza pie.

Some Pyists say that the formation of the pizza model itself may shed some light on the Universe as a whole. The pizza is formed first from raw dough, made into a circular shape, various elements are added, and finally it is baked. More extreme Pyists believe this may be a mirror of the Universe entirely, stating that the sauce could be the element that gives life its most basic form and the toppings are the complexities in this element that creates more complex organisms.

Interestingly, part of the pizza formation theory appears to coincide with the idea that space is curved. A pizza is curved, and space is curved, thus, it may be a legit model for the Universe.

edit As a Two-Dimensional Representation of a Three-Dimensional Object

Looking at a pizza pie from above, the shape of the very planet we live on may become clear to the observer. Considering no perfect pizza has yet been created, the crust-to-sauce ratio has never been definitely determined, and thus the crust could appear thinner than it does on an average pizza. Thus the crust can be representative of earth’s crust, and the sauce representative of earth’s inner parts (mantle, core, etc.); therefore the pizza could be a representation of a cutaway from the planet.

The crust, being a perfect diameter, may also be connected to the Movement of the Spheres—that is, the mathematical motions of the stars and planets. Pyists say that the Movement of the Spheres may produce a perfect taste sensation throughout the Universe that is reproduced only in water, yet we are unaware of it because it has existed since the Dawn of Time.

Applying the pizza model to ringed planets such as Saturn or Jupiter gives us an overhead view of these planets. The infinitely small gap between where the sauce ends and the crust begins can be the space between the planet and its rings.

The Inverted Pizza Pie is a shape similar to that of a Pizza Pie, but instead of the infinitely long crust (for a circumference has no length[1]) it has a center of crust-like material in an undefined shape. The Inverted shape can be applied to the Milky Way galaxy, made up of billions of parts (toppings) held together by gravity (sauce and dough) with an unreachable, undefined center (the inverted crust).

The regular pie, while we have so far only applied it to large bodies such as the planet, also mirrors the cell—the small building block of life. The crust, acting as the membrane, is the perimeter that encases the interior of the cell, or the sauce. Organelles are shown by various toppings.

The pizza model certainly displays itself in many different forms of organic life, and therefore pizza is an integral part of this mysterious third component to living existence.

A pizza pie can be divided infinitely. Yet, despite its many divisions, it still remains a part of the whole, as can be seen by the curve of the infinitely long crust. Oftentimes the division of a pizza pie is performed with the intent of sharing the pie with others. The components of the pie still exist in the same proportions—it still has the crust, the sauce, and the toppings.

Assuming that the pie is fair—all slices are cut equally, and the toppings scattered evenly about the entire face of the pie—a piece of the pie is the same as the whole of the pie. Only quantity changes, but quantity is relative. If everyone gets an equal slice of the pie, then quantity remains a constant and no one has any reason to complain.

Again, this model can be applied to many situations, but let us start small and take life as a whole. Every living human being has the same thing in common—life. Perhaps not the same quality of life, but life nonetheless. After all, in a realistic situation one cannot be expected to receive the exact toppings and exact quantity of pizza as everyone else. Life, still, is made up of the same components for everyone—crust, sauce, and toppings. The three components discussed before—life, death, and pizza (not respectively) are likely, say some Pyists, to be able to be applied to the pizza model. A Pyist has yet to determine the meaning behind the crust, sauce, and toppings, and which component applies to what. When this occurs, another mystery of the Universe may be unraveled for philosophers everywhere.

The individual can be represented in the pizza model as having the same major components as everyone else—crust, sauce, and toppings. Still, the quantity, quality, and variations of toppings (experience gained in life, particular talents, goals, and so on) are what makes us differ. Using the pizza model, an infinite amount of infinite kinds of toppings can be scattered across the pizza sauce in infinite directions. Therefore every individual (pizza) is unique.

↑A circumference has no length:
Distance is the amount of space between two points.
Draw two points on a circumference.
In between those two points, on the circumference, is another point.
In between those two points is another point, and so on.
The circumference is divisible infinitely.
The circumference is made up of an infinite amount of infinitely small parts.
An infinite amount of infinitely small parts is undefined, and thus can be infinitely long.
A circumference is infinitely long.
QED, or pwnd.